J O U R N A L / B L O G

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Friday, March 22, 2013

March 14th

After reading over some of Tarkovky’s book (just a little so
far) and the quote on the back about conscience in art making, I think it is
important to set down that wonder is my true inner mode of reflection, that my
work has to do with a processing of wonder, and though there may be a whole spectrum
of thought or intellect through which it might be filtered, the most direct
qualities of my person that must come through if my work is to have conscience
is the feeling implicit in that
wonder.

I am constructing a new place to live in near my studio in
sodo—it’s very exciting. Today I bought a cheap used stainless steel sink and
all the fittings and plumbing I will need. The studs are up for my walls. There
is a large space where a door will sit.

I accepted entry into a thematic show. The theme is
mythology, or legend. My intention is to do something related to the trickster
mythology I’ve been a bit entranced by, and hopefully I will find a way of
working towards it that retains the push towards new painting that has been
building up for quite some time: through any filter the surge of wonder can be
pushed, until the filter breaks, or weakly so that the wonder is obscured or
muddied or inaccessible. After I get my sink in working order it will be
brainstorming time.

I also fired off an e-mail to a concept artist working for
Arenanet who seems roughly my age, certainly a bit older, from Iceland, who
does very accomplished digital paintings of impressionistic city and
landscapes. My dad took me to a sounders game and the stadium lit up at night in
the fog was quite beautiful, and I had not been around that many people and
that much noise in quite a long time. My father paused on the stairs to the
second level of the parking garage on the way home because his heart is aging,
thankfully assisted by medicine and diet but possibly growing weaker and
weaker. I want to make a painting for everyone.

This concept of wonder is an important one I think. It is at
the base of all the concerns I have had over the years about romanticism and
escapism. And about thought and intellect in fine art. And about my sense of
self, relating to all those things.

March 15th

Reading through Jasper John’s notes and interviews, I think
to myself later: read that and think about how you might explore different
modalities of making and thinking about making. But I don’t have a powerful
mind like that, or rather, not a mind oriented around that way of responding to
things. I have my own language of wonder and exploration, and I think the key
is not trying to ‘subvert’ that so much as applying it effectively. I can apply
it to anything, and so it is flexible like a change of mode. To radio emissions
from the wires in binary computers, to rastering, line-by-line construction of
pixel values and electron beams, telephone wires, fiber optic cables with
information running through at the speed of light, the demolition of mountains to
make cables straighter for quicker economic power, everything! I can respond to
all this, to the history of this world and its people and their details and
lives and even narratives— and I think the value of the process I seek is in
this contemporary focus, contemporaneous glaciers and blood and biology pouring
over it all, physics and math and astronomy shining through or being revealed
dark as pitch from behind everything forming everything.

My current space is coming together. I installed a sink from
nothing, with no knowledge of plumbing! Scary and sketchy at times, but it
worked! I may make the whole room into a whorl of 2x4s, real and illustrated,
with perhaps a perfect square of blue or sky on one wall. It is a strange new
joy to make this utilitarian thing that is a place to live. Scary though in
implications, it is a bit like building a cage for yourself… but fun.